


years, continents, ruined lives, bloodshed

by princessoftheworlds



Category: Veronica Mars (Movie 2014), Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: 5 Times, Acceptance, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Grief/Mourning, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Not A Fix-It, Season/Series 04 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 10:44:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19886317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessoftheworlds/pseuds/princessoftheworlds
Summary: Five different reactions to that Season Four death.





	years, continents, ruined lives, bloodshed

**Author's Note:**

> Right, so I started watching Veronica Mars on Hulu two weeks ago when I found out about the fourth season. I was excited, because I really liked Kristen Bell, especially in the Good Place. I didn't expect to get so attached. I spent this week rewatching episodes and reading the books in preparation. Then the season dropped a whole week early, and I was so excited. 
> 
> I'm not any more. This is my love letter to Logan Echolls and his relationship with Veronica Mars.
> 
> Anyways, I wrote this in five hours instead of sleeping. It's unbeta'd because I wanted to post it ASAP, so mind the errors (I imagine there are many).
> 
> ALSO, PLEASE MIND THE TAGS. THEY ARE THERE FOR A REASON. THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THIS FIC!!!!!!!!

Throughout his life, Logan Echolls was known as many things: son of two movie stars, a brother, “a psychotic jackass,” a three-time murder accused, a concerned on-again off-again boyfriend, a party boy, a US Navy pilot lieutenant, a Naval Intelligence Officer, and briefly, a husband.

There were many things he was, and many things he wasn’t, but when it mattered, when it all came down to it, he was loved.

* * *

Keith Mars rests his weary head against his desk, sighing. It’s been perhaps half an hour or more since he reached the Mars Investigations office, and he is exhausted. Bone-tired. He didn’t realize it as they were working the case, or well, he did and just hadn’t wanted to show Veronica. But she found out anyways; he remembers how she’d reacted when he’d told her he wanted to retire. But it’s all over and in the past now - as of several hours. 

Keith’s brain is fine, and eventually, his body will be too.

Still, the bombing case has taken its toll on Keith’s mind. When a case has so much at stake, so much loss attached to it, it always exacts its toll. Especially when he’d gotten so emotionally attached with Clyde.

At his spry age - _fifty-six is the new nineteen_ , Veronica said only days previous, making friends was difficult, and even though they’d been playing each other throughout their interactions, Clyde Pickett had been one hell of an interesting friend. When he’d offered to remain friends before Keith had hurried down to the courthouse, he’d been tempted. 

But Keith Mars is nothing but a man with morals and integrity; he’d proved that by sticking to his beliefs about Jake Kane, even when the rest of Neptune had begun to ridicule him. Then they drove him out of office, and there was nothing he could do despite the fact that his gut instinct eventually lead him to something much darker than he’d previously thought. And it had been proven that his morals and integrity didn’t stand a chance when his only daughter needed his help; he proved that himself, and it had cost him the sheriff election. 

It hadn’t affected him as much as the guilt had Veronica; Keith had needed his daughter safe and far away from this town, but to his displeasure, she’d come back all on her own.

His cell phone rings roughly, and Keith’s jolted out of his musings. He reaches for it, sliding his finger over the glass touch screen to collect the call. “Hello?”

“Mr. Mars?” It’s Chief Marcia Langdon, and she sounds just as brusque as always, but Keith doesn’t know if he’s imagining the note of apology to her words.

“Uh huh, Marcia. How can I help you?”

Marcia sighs. “Keith, you may want to sit down for this.” She waits for a moment until he makes a sound of affirmation, something ugly taking bloom at the pit of his stomach. “There’s been another bomb.”

_No, no, no, no, no_. He thought he’d stopped them; he and Veronica had hand-delivered Penn Epner to the police. There should have been no more bombings!

After his car accident, Keith had gone through brief stages during recovery where his mind would still and his ears would be filled with a low ringing, like static on a radio.

The static takes over again, and while he hadn’t before, he now sinks into a chair, clutching the sides with a white-knuckled grip. He’s listening to Marcia, but he isn’t really _hearing_ her.

_There was another bomb. Epner left it as some kind of revenge. They’d puzzled out his limerick wrong; it had been a misdirection. The bomb had been transported in a backpack -_ a detective bag, _and it had been waiting in Veronica’s car, set to go off at five o’clock - street-cleaning time, which would be noon in Fiji’s time zone. There had been one casualty._

In the next few years, Keith will always feel shame that his first immediate reaction was _relief_ , relief that it wasn’t Veronica. Relief that his daughter was safe.

Then he feels the shock and grief, his mind already still. 

_It had been Logan who left to move the car_.

Mature, caring Logan who had only become Veronica’s husband and Keith’s son-in-law earlier in the day. 

Keith remembered what Logan had been like as a teenager; he’d busted him and Duncan and Lily and Veronica a few times for being teenagers. Then Lily had died, and Logan had fallen off the rails. For the longest time after he and Veronica had resumed dating when she had returned to town, he had disapproved of Logan, still trapped under the influence of his destructive teenage ways, but slowly, he’d approved of the man Logan had grown into. Logan had made an effort to turn out differently than his father.

Keith had been proud to call him his son-in-law.

“Keith?” Marcia asks over the speaker of his phone, voice coming out tinny. “Your daughter is here on the scene. The paramedics are tending to some shrapnel wounds, but she’s in deep shock.”

Keith forces himself to speak. “I’m coming.”

He can grieve later; right now, he needs to be there for his daughter.

* * *

Dick is deep in the depths of what seems to be his third whisky bottle when someone calls. At first, he doesn’t pick up at first; why should he, he’s _fucking mourning_! He just lost his dad. 

Someone broke into his house, cut his head off, and took it like something out of one of the video games Dick played. Or like from one of the earlier low-budget movies he had a supporting role in.

_Whatever_.

Filming on that Lifetime movie in Romania where they may or may not speak English doesn’t start for another few months, and spring break in Neptune is basically over anyways. The party is gone; the bombing killed it. ( _Killed it_ , huh? Pun intended.) All the hot babes headed back to whatever fancy colleges their parents paid for, and Dick’s left with the same few girls left in town. It’s like in high school when they were about to graduate and no one wanted to be his date to prom; he had basically run out of girls.

But he doesn’t feel like screwing anyone. He lost his dad. He hasn’t felt this low in a long time, not since his little bro jumped off the roof of the Neptune Grand. He doesn’t think he’ll be up to partying for a while. Maybe Logan can hang out with him later, when he’s back from screwing his new blond missus on their honeymoon; he’d invited him to the impromptu courthouse wedding earlier, something about being the closest thing to family he had left, but Dick had declined. He didn’t want to be an even bigger drunk asshole on Logan and Veronica’s happy day. 

His phone rings again.

_What the fuck_?

He realizes that he said that allowed. “ _Fuck off,_ ” he yells at the phone, but it doesn’t listen and keeps ringing. 

Dick lumbers to his feet from the couch where he’s slumped over and, vision swimming, picks his way through the trash, accidentally smushing takeout boxes until he gets to his phone. Head pounding, he answers the call after checking the caller ID.

“Hey, V-card, have you and Logan started smushing booties yet?” Despite trying the hardest, he knows that his voice still wavers and slurs from the alcohol, which he doesn’t want. _He’s an actor for Chrissakes._

“Dick?”

The voice on the phone is definitely not snarky and belonging to the one blond who has captured his friend’s balls in one tight grip. It’s male but also doesn’t belong to Logan. It’s belongs to one Keith Mars who Dick only remembers interacting with upon rare occasions like a rare Thanksgiving. 

That had been a weird day.

“Mr. Mars? What gives, man? I heard you caught the bomber!” Dick whoops. “Did you hear about my dad?”

“I did, Dick. I’m sorry.” The man sounds very…. _sad_? Dick doesn’t know how to describe it, but it’s the tone he’s heard people use on movies before they tell someone bad news about a family member. “And I’m even sorrier that I have to tell you this…”

His heart drops. “Did you find out something about my dad?”

“No, Dick. It wasn’t your dad. I’m afraid something terrible has happened, but Logan…”

The longer Keith Mars pauses, the longer the dread eats away at Dick. _What_ happened to Logan? Did he not marry Veronica? Did he get cold feet or accidentally screw someone else? Did he get called back in? “ _What happened_ , Mr. M?”

“Logan died.”

Dick drops his phone, but as it slips from his grip, he accidentally thumbs the button for the speaker phone. When the device bumps against the plush carpet of the hotel suite, it flips over, and Mr. Mars continues to speak, voice muffled. “Dick, are you still there?”

Still in shock, he can’t be bothered to pick up the phone. “I’m still here,” he calls back, voice high and now most definitely slurred. Some part of him has gone numb. Deep down, he had almost always expected this news - he’s seen action movies, but he didn’t think it would be here and now. “What happened?”

“There was a bomb,” Mr. Mars explains. “Logan went to move Veronica’s car, and it exploded.”

Expecting it or not, he didn’t want the news. _Not Logan_. Logan who he had supported when he got accused of murder. Logan who had supported him like a brother, who had been the only one cheering when Dick graduated college. Dick returned the favor when Logan finished and graduated from his naval training.

“But the wedding…” Dick hesitates. “Did it ever happen?” 

“It did,” Mr. Mars confirms, his voice sad. “They were just going to leave for the honeymoon.”

“What’s going on? How’s Veronica?” _That’s_ what you’re supposed to ask, right? For the first time in the longest time, his immediate thought after a death isn’t to offer comfort sex to the widow.

“She’s not holding up well.” Mr. Mars doesn’t sound too good either. “She’s in shock.”

“Who knows? Where is everyone?”

“Chief Langdon called me. I’m at the hospital right now; Veronica got some injuries from the blast. It’s been about an hour. I called you. You were like Logan’s brother.”

Dick doesn’t know what adult part of his brain takes over when it tells Mr. Mars, “I’ll be there.” Then he goes looking for more bottles of alcohol to smuggle into his pockets; he thinks Veronica will need them.

* * *

Trina is producing a movie in Thailand when she gets the call. It’s from an unknown number with a local area code for Neptune, and she wonders who’s calling. It could be Logan, but she has his number saved, and they haven’t spoken in about a year. They don’t need to. When family matters, he’ll come find her. He always does.

Instead, her mystery caller is a man, but he doesn’t sound hot. He sounds old and formal and grieving when he explains to Trina about the bombings in Neptune that she had vaguely heard about; after what happened with her adoptive parents and then her biological parents, she’s tried to put Neptune in her past. 

Then he tells her that her brother is dead, and her heart skips a beat. She calls cut on the scene they’re filming today, and the director’s annoyed but only briefly, because he’s sleeping with her.

“Do you need me to identify the body or something?” she asks. That’s what they had asked her to do when Dad died; she’d barely seen his body before nodding and stepping away. Logan had _refused_ to look at it.

_Logan_. Her little brother, adoptive step or not.

“No,” the man tells her. “I did it…”

_Huh_. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

“Keith Mars.”

_Oh_ … the sheriff. Trina vaguely remembers him. _Veronica’s dad_. She wonders how Logan’s ex-girlfriend - girlfriend - Trina can’t keep track anymore - is feeling. “I wanna be there anyways,” she tells him. “I’ll catch the next flight.”

On the plane, all she can think about is how long it had been since she’s seen Logan in person. A few years? She visited him briefly after he was acquited of the murder charges of his popstar girlfriend. She’d offered to help him sell him the right to the story or to produce it, but he’d refused with a hard expression. That’s maybe when he’d started dating Veronica again. She’d refused too.

_It’s funny_ , Trina thinks, _how that little blond detective whose life seems literally out of a movie fell for the son of movie stars._

She remembers Logan as a kid. He was rambunctious but clumsy; by the time he was eight, he started getting purple and blue bruises from always tripping and falling while playing. Their age difference had been so much that they never really interacted until he became older, maybe thirteen. Though Trina attended Neptune High, Lynn and Aaron would travel the world for their movies and would take Logan with them. By the time they all formally moved to Neptune, when Logan was eleven, he started hanging out with the Kane siblings - Lily was too feisty, and Duncan was just a weird kid - and eventually Veronica. 

He started being more snarky and mouthing everyone - including Trina off. His attitude didn’t even exclude his beloved mom, which Trina loved since she despised Lynn. When she wasn’t flitting through the world with her famous friends or auditioning, she’d return home briefly, and she and Logan would just snipe at each other until their parents could no longer take it. 

Logan was still clumsy, even as a teenager, even with all the adrenaline, drinking, and the girls. He kept claiming that it was Dad, Dad who would give him cigarette burns and broken noses, but how could Dad do such stuff? Dad who had taken Trina in as a baby and showered her in money and love. Dad could be violent - as seen with Trina’s boyfriend Dylan Goran, for which she never really got to thank him, but he did it for family. Family was important to him.

After Lynn died and Dad was accused of murder, everything went off the rails. Of course, Dad _didn’t kill_ Lily Kane; it was Duncan Kane. Trina knew it. Duncan had always been a weird kid. 

Then Dad died too, and Logan and Trina became even more distant. He called her maybe once when he OD’d after dropping out of college - _she didn’t even know_ that he had been going to Hearst. Then later, he told her that he had joined the Navy, and Trina had thought that was action movie-worthy and had offered, but he had refused as always.

And now, he’s gone. _Dead_. And Trina is the only Echolls left in the world, that too only in name.

For some reason, despite their strange and distant relationship, that causes Trina to shed tears, _actual tears_ , on the plane. She had to touch up her makeup in the first class bathroom.

So anyways, the plane touches down, and she takes an Uber to the hospital. She’s too distraught to even call the paps on herself for once.

Keith Mars, the sheriff, still short and balding, leads her to an empty hallway. He asks if she wants to see the body.

Trina says no.

With all the death and trauma in her life, she has to work hard to keep only the glitz and glamor, because the other option is to breakdown and acknowledge the ugly truths. _Her bio parents abandoned her. Her perfect family was only in pictures. She might have actually loved her mom. Her dad might have been abusing her little brother. Her dad might have been a murder. Her only brother died. Trina was alone in the world._

“How is Veronica?” Trina asks, because the sheriff’s her dad, right?

The sheriff winces. “Not good.”

Trina doesn’t offer to see Veronica or comfort her - they weren’t _really_ friends or anything, but when she passes by the hospital room door, she gains a brief view through the window of a near catatonic blond with faint scars around her face and wrapped in a tight embrace by her father and a handsome black man. Trina sees the golden ring on her finger and forces herself to ask Logan’s frat boy friend Dick or Cock or something.

“How long had they been married?” she asks with sad eyes and lips pressed together.

_Dick_ \- her brain reminds her - takes a giant swig from the bottle he somehow smuggled into the hospital. He offers her some, and she declines. He looks terrible, clothes rumpled, hair unkempt, smelling of vomit, and she nearly shies away. He checks a giant expensive watch on his wrist. “A few hours. About a day.”

_Oh_.

For the first time in a long time, Trina wishes she had been a better older sister.

* * *

Lieutenant Alexander Sanchez is on leave in Philadelphia when he gets the call, but he’s hiking up a mountain, and when he finally manages to get to civilization and on a plane to San Diego, he arrives just a day before the funeral.

He can’t believe the news: Logan Echolls dead.

It seems impossible and just _fucking_ ironic. He’d just seen Echolls alive two weeks ago when they were called for a very _short_ active duty. Echolls had been really excited to go home to his girlfriend who he explained had been investigating the bombings in their hometown of Neptune that the whole country had heard about on the news.

His girlfriend. _Veronica Mars_.

Alex has never met her, but he can imagine that he has from all that Logan talked about her.

Alex had first met Logan Echolls during training. Echolls was maybe twenty; Alex was nineteen. He’d signed up with grand aspirations of serving his country before he’d gotten to see the gritty and ugly realities of war. Echolls had already seemed disillusioned and weary; he was isolated and withdrawn, never interacting with the other recruits when they gathered to play cards or chat - there was never much other to do during their down time, except maybe read. They’d taken to calling him _Movie Star_ behind his back, though Alex was certain Echolls knew about it. They couldn’t help it; most of them had never met anyone with such a colorful, sordid history: son of two movie stars, wealthy, a playboy, accused of murder twice, the son of an alleged murderer. 

When the Lily Kane murder had made the news, and it did in a big way because Lily Kane was young, white, wealthy, and pretty, he had been a starring player in the constant special reports.

Eventually, as it did during training, Echolls’s quiet resolve and obedience began to crack after a few weeks, and a shadow of his true personality began to shine true. Snarky, spoiled, a little maniac, angry - Alex had never seen _so much anger_ in a man, and a true daredevil and adrenaline junkie. He was a bit of a playboy and a partier despite how much the Navy tried to tame that out of him, and his mouth gained him an infamous repute amongst the recruits and a fairly lazy call sign: “Mouth.” In other circumstances, Alex and the other recruits could have come to despise him, but when it came down to the important stuff, Echolls listened. He had your back. He was a survivor. He endured some of the worst training exercises they were subjected to without cracking. Alex didn’t understand how someone from such a sheltered and posh background could be this way until he watched Echolls nearly flinch as an older commander, a man with an impressive mustache, yelled orders at him until his face was red and blotchy and his voice hoarse from shouting. 

Then Alex understood.

In the years they’d served together, especially on the USS _Truman_ , Lieutenant Logan Echolls became someone Alex could rely on, could trust, a friend, a _good_ friend, and as Alex watches the ten pallbearers - including a short balding man who limps with a cane, a blond man who Alex recognizes as actor Dick Casablancas who he and Logan once went drinking with in New York, a black man with a close-shorn head, and a tatted Latino dude in an impressive leather jacket over his suit along with a few other of Logan’s Navy buddies who responded faster than Alex was able to - carry the glossy black casket that contains what’s remaining of his friend’s body, he feels a sharp stab of sorrow.

But he’s also angry. Because Logan Echolls had been home. He was supposed to be safe. And isn’t it just _fucking ironic_ that he survives IEDs in the Middle East only to be blown up on his home turf?

The funeral is set up like Lieutenant Vincent “Bilbo” Malubay’s. Alex doesn’t know why that’s the one funeral that comes to mind considering it was five years ago and that he’s been to a few more since then, but that was one he and Logan had attended together.

Rows of white chairs are set upon a large verdant expanse of lawn, and the infamous California sun beats steadily down upon them. Alex feels a trickle of sweat slip under the stiff collar of his Full Dress Blues and down his neck. It seems that today, California didn’t get the message to be somber and grey and foggy, though that might be the other side of the state.

There’s a large picture of Logan resting on an easel. It features him looking stiff and formal in his uniform but also oddly graceful and at ease at the same time. There’s a wry smirk tugging at his lips, and Alex recognizes the expression, flashing back to a triumphant Logan only weeks ago, towards the end of their active duty. He’d been so happy to come home, to Veronica.

Alex finds said Veronica Mars seated in the front row, blond hair swept into a tight, painful-looking bun and a fancy black dress with a sleek skirt. Judging by the pictures Logan had once showed them, she’s likely not comfortable and used to dressing that way. 

Despite everything, Logan had never really explained what happened in his past until a few years later on the USS _Truman_. They were waiting to receive orders when one lieutenant had begun to wax poetic about how much he missed his wife. Then they all began to compare stories. When it came Logan’s turn, he shrugged and said, “There’s no one in my life.”

Alex had gotten the sense that he didn’t just mean that romantically.

Eventually, when needled, Logan had opened up about the love of his life, Veronica Mars.

He explained how tumultuous his relationship was with his first love and girlfriend Lily Kane. After her death, Logan had blamed her best friend Veronica and her dad, the sheriff, and had terrorized her out of grief, but she hadn’t wavered. She’d stood up to his bullying and snarked back. 

“She’s a tiny blond thing,” he’d said, “but there’s enough ferocity for her for someone three times her size.” His eyes had lit up when he talked about her, and there was a rare smile on his face that wasn’t teasing or wicked; he genuinely loved her.

Then things changed. Logan’s mother jumped off a bridge, and he went to Veronica for help. Somewhere in his grief and searching, his hatred for her burned away into something else, and he fell for her. They dated, but then she accused him first of rape and then of murder.

Already, to Alex, it had sounded like something like a movie, but Logan had just been getting started with his story.

They got back together just as Logan was beaten up and framed for murder, _again_. She stood by his side until his frenzied actions drove her away. Heartbroken, he watched her date his best friend until they broke up. Eventually, he saved her from her rapist, and they reconciled.

But their story was just getting started.

They dated until she got involved with a serial rape case on their college campus, and when he couldn’t stand by and watch her risk herself and get hurt, he broke up with her. They made up briefly until she found out he slept with “her worst enemy.” After he beat up her boyfriend because he thought that he circulated a sex tape of Veronica, she cut him out of her life for good and moved away.

It was over, but he was still hung up on her, and Alex never thought that would change until Logan met Carrie. He was happier then.

But Carrie died, and Veronica came rocketing back into Logan’s life. They got back together.

When Alex heard that, he choked on his coffee. Logan’s love life, and life in general, sounded like one of Alex’s abuela’s telenovelas, always astounding Alex.

Logan was supposed to be happy, to have finally achieved the domestic bliss he was craving. He had been so excited to propose to Veronica; that’s all he had talked about for days.

When Veronica, hard-eyed and tight-lipped, steps onto the podium to deliver the eulogy, Alex gets a good look at the sleek diamond ring on her finger, and his stomach plummets. 

The world can _really be_ cruel, and Alex knows that Veronica Mars, wife and widow in less than two days, learned that the hard way.

* * *

**One Year Later**

Lying on a motel bed in Utah, chasing a bail jumper, Veronica thinks she’s come to terms with it.

_Well_ , that’s a fucking joke. A lie. Grief has a way of digging itself under your skin and never letting go. Veronica learned that at fifteen when she saw her best friend’s body, her skull bloodied and bashed in. 

But the new wound, the recent grief, has sorta settled in under her skin, always there, but eventually, with time, she’ll learn to look past it. For now, it drives her, motivates her. It’s like she told Matty, her anger never really went away.

And she’s glad to be out of Neptune, away from all the people judging her, with their false sympathy, walking on eggshells around her. After ten years away, despite her five years living there, Neptune has fundamentally changed from what she remembers from growing up and her high school years. They say memory lives forever, but they never tell you that the people who remember move away.

It’s for the best.

The city’s already tainted with its recent and past scandals - there never really was a virgin Neptune that Big Dick Casablancas kept longing for, but the people, when they see Veronica, they don’t see Veronica Mars, teenaged private eye, daughter of the sheriff who bungled the Lily Kane investigation, the girl who made it out but brought herself back of her own accord, the girl with the dead best friend and the tainted boyfriend. They see Veronica Mars, Stanford and Columbia degrees hanging on her wall, talented PI who caught the Sea Sprite bomber, one half of Mars Investigations. But they also see Veronica Mars, _tragedy_ , wife and widow in a day, happiness slipping from her at every corner. Every persona they invent and see is chased by her own demons.

Even Logan wasn’t immune, isn’t immune in his death. Some - those with the long memories, often on the other side of the tracks, or the ones who haven’t left for greener pastures at least - remember Logan Echolls, son of movie stars Aaron and Lynn Echolls, acquited of the murder of Felix Toombs, a playboy, a monster, a destructive link in the chain, surrounded by secrets and scandal. But more see Logan Echolls, a colorful past, _yes_ , but also a highly-decorated Naval Intelligence Officer, a respected resident of Neptune, the tragic last victim of the Sea Sprite bomber who even his own wife couldn’t save. 

Dad, Wallace, Mac - who came back from Istanbul _for her_ , and even Dick and Weevil try to help, but she sees the look in their eyes. Her mom even came to stay once, for a week, while Dad was getting his hip replacement. She had been at the funeral. She brought Hunter who, at ten-years-old, was able to understand that something terrible had happened. Death is terrible, but sometimes, its circumstances make it even worse. Hunter understood that when he looked at his older sister, and he wisely didn’t mention Logan as they played with Pony. 

Pony who still sleeps at the door at times, even in Dad’s house, like she’s expecting Logan to step through the door at any moment.

Once, Leo came by. He didn’t know what to say, so he hovered awkwardly before leaving.

Veronica’s fucking sick of it. She had to leave Neptune behind briefly; she does so occasionally when they have to chase bail jumpers and suspects. Here, with the night silent around her, she’s alone with her thoughts.

She’s grateful at first.

Then like it occasionally does, the simmering grief - and melancholy and longing and sorrow - in her reaches a boiling point. After the tears abide and the snot is wiped away, she begins to dream.

She used to dream of Lily.

It started after Lily was murdered. Veronica would see her in her dreams, playful, laughing, young, how she was before Aaron chased her down near the pool. Her dreams were always happy. After she solved the murder and Aaron was arrested, Veronica had one last dream of Lily floating besides her in the pool of lilies, both of them in pink bikinis, until the other girl simply _disappeared_. Veronica had felt at peace.

Then, after the bus crash, Veronica had had nightmares, but she’d found closure after Cassidy Casablancas jumped off the roof of the Neptune Grand. It wasn’t the closure she wanted, but it was what she got.

But in both cases, there had been a perp to chase, a confrontation.

But with Epner, there was none. He’s already behind bars, awaiting trial. Even with how sensationalized everything was, Veronica doesn’t know if he’ll be found guilty. Aaron Echolls wasn’t.

Besides Epner’s final attack came after his arrest, a devastating epilogue.

So now, when Veronica dreams, she dreams of Logan. His smile, his laugh, his jawline, those caramel eyes. The way he touched her. The way he drove her crazy but was also always understanding. The way he supported her and never doubted her. Him in his damn uniform. The new and improved Logan Echolls.

She also dreams of the old Logan, the damaged Logan. Him snarling at her and threatening her in the hallways. Smashing in the taillights of her car at Dog Beach. Eyes flashing fiercely. That wry smirk. Breaking down in her arms after his mother’s death. Still in her arms, bloodied and bruised. Mocking her. Flinching when she retorted. Drinking and stumbling. Holding her close - metaphorically since they didn’t actually dance or anything - at prom and then breaking her heart. Arguing with her over her safety at Hearst. Beating Piz bloody.

All because he loved her. Respected her. Wanted to marry her and have children with her. All as he said in his voicemail.

Dad and Jane, the few times Veronica’s seen her, have assured her that the dreams will fade in time as she recovers, as will the grief. But with experience, Veronica knows that the grief is here to stay.

In weaker moments, Veronica wishes that Logan’s text at the courthouse hadn’t in fact been a mistake, that he had gotten cold feet, that he had stood her up. She would feel betrayed, she would hate him, she doesn’t think their relationship would stand that, but at least then he wouldn’t have been near her car. He would still be alive.

_I thought our story was epic, you know, you and me_ , he’d told her all those years ago at prom. _Spanning years and continents. Lives ruined, bloodshed. Epic._

She had countered with, _Come on. Ruined lives? Bloodshed? You really think a relationship should be that hard?_

The shadow in his eyes had been indescribable; it still haunts her to this day. _No one writes songs about the ones who come easy_.

Now, a weary Veronica scoffs mournfully into the ragged pillow. Oh, Logan, the idiot, her husband. For several brief hours, that word, _husband_ , brought her joy she couldn’t have imagined. Then it became laced with so much pain and grief. Now, she’s immune to it.

_Oh, Logan_ , she thinks. _You got what you wanted. Epic. If that’s how you want to describe our love_.

_Spanning years_? At least fifteen, though Veronica would live with their love for the rest of her life.

_Continents_? North America, the Middle East, even parts of Europe and Africa.

_Lives ruined_? They kept saying that everything would get better, but there had been so much drama and scandal and terror in their relationship. Their lives hadn’t necessarily been ruined, but Veronica had lost so many chances over Logan. Leo, Duncan, a career in New York, Piz. She doesn’t regret what’s she’s lost, but it’s still there in her past.

_Bloodshed_? That’s what began their relationship. Lily’s death. Lynn’s suicide. Felix’s murder. Logan beating up Mercer and Piz. It’s also what ended their relationship, their marriage. Logan. A boy, and later man, whose life was so entrenched in murder, violence, and bloodshed until he lost said life to it. But the last part? That had been Veronica’s part. If she’d just left the bombings alone…

_Epic_.

When Veronica was a girl, Lianne had briefly read fairy tales of princes rescuing princesses to her until they had quickly realized that Veronica rather the princess rescue herself. 

_Epic_. Like something out of those fairy tales.

Veronica doesn’t know if she’s ever going to be a mother - dog-mother to Pony doesn’t necessarily count. She had thought that she would be, with the right partner. Now said partner is gone. 

But if she does have children, should she ever find love again, she’s going to teach them that fairy tales don’t have happy endings. _Epic_ doesn’t mean easy or final or forever. 

Veronica knows she can come back from this. She’s come back from similar, but this is worse. Still, the hard part, the first year, is over. It’s only supposed to get easier from this, right?

Logan Echolls, boy, Neptune’s resident psychotic jackass, son, sailor, boyfriend, husband, soulmate. His remains might be buried deep in the dirt, but Veronica will carry him with her for the rest of her life. He was loved. By his mother. By his father-in-law. By his best friend. By his sister. By his fellow sailors and friends. By Veronica Mars.

By Veronica Mars.

**Author's Note:**

> Catch me crying over Logan Echolls for the next week. LoVe had all the making for a great OTP of mine; what I didn't have was enough time with them. The drama, the on-and-off-againess, the epic speech. Ugh. I'm crying.
> 
> I should have known something was wrong when I saw the episode title and when they got married. They were too happy.
> 
> I'm not completely accepting of the finale ending, but I wrote this to avoid obsessing over it.
> 
> Find me on tumblr [here](http://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/) or on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/rajkumarinik) to let me know how much you liked this fic or request a prompt. Come cry with me. Also, please feel free to reblog [this post on tumblr](https://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/post/186426716104/years-continents-ruined-lives-bloodshed-love) and [this post on twitter](https://twitter.com/rajkumarinik/status/1152650936596062209).


End file.
